Russia

Good works

Official ignorance and suspicion towards Russia’s charities are giving way to interest—and the danger of a stifling embrace

BIGGER, more numerous, better run and with increasing clout, Russia's charities are beginning to fill the hole left by 70 years of bogus state-monopoly altruism. Though there are few exact statistics, the number of active do-gooding outfits now tops 100,000. Especially in local government, there are the beginnings of a real partnership between the state and private do-gooders. Of Russia's 89 regions, the number that have formal co-operation arrangements with, for example, groups working with orphans and the disabled, has risen from 12 in 1998 to 40 now.

That marks a big change. Russian officials used to see charities either as meddlesome critics or competitors for jealously guarded power and influence. There is even a bit more interest from federal government. Last week the Kremlin held a conference organised by the United Nations' children's agency, Unicef. Around 1,000 delegates from children's charities attended. The social-affairs minister, Valentina Matvienko, gave an approving speech. That would have been unheard of a few years ago.

But the progress is still slow. Russia's tax code, and the bureaucrats who enforce it, stops charities doing sensible things like running shops to raise money: that would be “commercial activity”. This week George Soros, an American philanthropist, announced a temporary halt in his $1.5m programme of individual grants, because the authorities are trying to levy a 35.9% tax on them, arguing that they are “wages”.

The government says it is willing to negotiate. But other difficulties have more sinister causes. Registration is tough, especially for charities dealing with such subjects as legal reform, the environment, or civil liberties. A few years ago President Vladimir Putin himself said that environmental groups were fronts for spies.

Campaigning charities now say that receiving foreign grants, or employing foreigners, is increasingly risky. Russia's ultra-twitchy spy-catchers easily jump to the wrong conclusion. That can be very unpleasant. Despite a postponement this week, Grigory Pasko, a journalist accused of treason for leaking details of the navy's dumping of nuclear waste, is due for trial in Vladivostock in June. He had been acquitted in an earlier trial, but the authorities have simply restarted the case from scratch.

Some do-gooders worry that officials' new-found enthusiasm for charity may end up compromising their independence. The most immediate danger is at a local level, where there are few checks on top officials' whims. But last year people close to the Kremlin floated the idea of combining all Russian welfare charities into one big one—to be headed by none other than Mrs Putin. That has gone no further, for now.

Official help or hindrance aside, the picture is still patchy. Training for charity workers and administrators is now widely available. “We simply don't need foreign trainers any more,” says Elena Topoleva, of the Social Information Agency. Charities are also much better at using the legal system on behalf of those abused by employers or bureaucrats. Charities bring tens of thousands of such court cases a year—though having judgments implemented is still difficult.

Fund-raising (fantreising in Russian) is still a novel concept. Many charities are better at getting grants from western donors than at tapping rich Russians. This is mainly a legacy of Soviet mistrust, coupled with the very bad reputation that charities connected to military ex-servicemen, the Russian Orthodox church and sport gained in the immediate post-Soviet period. Many were purely commercial outfits seeking to benefit from privileged tax and customs status, and were often run by organised-crime groups. Most have now shut down.

However, some of Russia's best-known tycoons have started giving money. Vladimir Potanin, for example, who grabbed the country's nickel industry at a knock-down price in the mid-1990s, now gives $1m a year to pay stipends $40 a month to students. Boris Berezovsky, another magnate currently living abroad for fear of arrest at home, has donated generously to the Sakharov House in Moscow, one of the few groups trying to help Russia come to terms with its totalitarian past. Vladimir Gusinsky, a media tycoon on bail in Spain and under heavy fire from the Kremlin, has given money to improve conditions at one of Moscow's worst prisons, where he spent a few uncomfortable nights last summer.